The Wheel that Turns the Stars: A Fantasy Novel

‘This moment will never come again, Jason. You know that.’ -Vincent

When his brother leaves to enlist as a midshipman, Jason is resigned to an unremarkable life in the small coastal town of Fairhope. But his world is upended when he is persuaded to embark on a perilous journey by Vincent, a promethean orphan with the ability to shape fire, who has glimpsed in dreams a terrifying battle at sea and who believes he is fated to die on his eighteenth birthday unless he finds the mythical Phoenix.

Accompanied by Sarah, Jason's childhood friend lately awakened to a secret power, and Marco Alexander, a militia captain in search of personal glory, they set out to reach the distant desert kingdom of Sapphir. But this is only the beginning of a voyage of exploration and discovery that will take them halfway around the world and beyond, from the smugglers’ coast of Highland to a high citadel above the fjords and mountains of Storvik to intrigue and betrayal amid the grand palaces and glittering canals of Heneth.

Set in a detailed, methodically researched world inspired by the history of the early nineteenth century, The Wheel that Turns the Stars is the first volume of Memories of the Anunnaki, an extraordinary epic fantasy set in an age of sail, muskets and enlightenment.

As he stepped out of the courtyard Jason was struck by sudden apprehension, as though the full adventure and majesty and beauty and horror of what now lay ahead had been revealed to him for just a fleeting instant, leaving only the memory; and then even that seemed to vanish into the space between heartbeats. In his darker moments in the weeks and months that were to come he would discover many causes for regret, but this would always be the first, the foundation upon which all the others rested like grains of sand gathering in the base of an inverted hourglass. And yet always he would reject any notion of fate, accepting his mistake as his own.